What’s more fun than a race report? How about TWO race reports, one from New York and one from Colorado, from the same weekend?

Cross-country pals and former race nemeses Barb and Shane report from their weekend exploits below.

Barb races the GoPro Games in Vail

I somewhat capriciously decided to race Mountain Bike Nationals this year, and when I told my coach he (wisely) suggested I should race once or twice before Nationals. Thus the hunt for mountain bike races was on, and I found the cross country race at the GoPro Games! I’d never done anything bike related at the GoPro Games, but I had once done a running race that went up the mountain. It was terrible, but fun afterwards (i.e. type 2 fun). This seemed slightly less insane?

I decided on the Expert field, mainly because it was at 10 am, not 1 pm, and 1 pm is too late, and too hot. This meant I would be racing at the same time as the Pro men and women, which ended up being semi-hectic, yet very cool. I certainly hadn’t been on the same course as Erin Huck or Keegan Swenson before. In fact, yesterday I was able to let Keegan pass me!

We drove up from Denver early Saturday morning. I rode maybe the first mile or so of the course as a warmup and to terrify myself as it was incredibly steep. I knew there was nothing technically difficult, just a LOT of climbing, which is usually my favorite. This was daunting and I knew I had to meter my effort at the start - the combination of the climbing, the altitude, and the challenging field meant very little recovery.

We started and I was immediately moving back as the field went pretty aggressively off the line. However, as soon as the climbing started in earnest I found myself moving up. Having stalked prior years’ results I knew one woman would ride away immediately, which she did, so I said to myself ‘okay', this is a race for second’. This was good because I knew position was important as soon as we got onto the singletrack, so I went with it. And I don’t race with a computer in front of my face so I couldn’t see that my heart rate was likely pegged. There wasn’t a second of technical climbing but we alternated between snocat roads and smooth single track, with a couple brief downhills for recovery. I was immediately glad I didn’t try to race the Pro/Open field as they had three laps. Two was plenty.

I got into a group with a really tall (and extremely nice) woman and two fast juniors. We were together for most of the climb until the tall woman had some type of mechanical. I kept going and got onto the downhill behind one of the juniors and in front of another. We had passed several Open racers which would lead to some traffic on the downhill as well.

The downhill was SO much fun. A bit dusty but smooth, flowy, and totally gorgeous as we rode through stands of Aspens, wildflowers, and even a deer that ran across the trail in front of me. I let a few of the pro racers pass as I had not pre-ridden and I’m not the fastest descender, and asked a few if I could pass so I was cool with this!

We made our way to the start / finish and I was hot, cotton-mouthed from dust, and tired. But I thought I was in the top 5 so I grabbed a drink from my feed zone crew (my husband Rod and our dog Sophie, who was unimpressed with the strong sun) and headed out for the second loop.

The second lap was definitely a bit slower and Keegan Swenson came by me at a blistering speed so I knew it would be a bit challenging to stop and start as the pro men caught us. The tall woman (okay now I know her name is Sarah because we’re Strava friends) caught me and passed at a good clip so I just tried to keep her in my sights. I knew she wasn’t that great a descender based on us yelling stuff at each other, and I’ve improved a lot so I thought maybe I could nip her on the descent.

We started the descent and I could still see Sarah just a bit ahead. This descent quickly became annoying as more pro men were flying down the track. I didn’t want to be a jerk so any time I knew someone was behind I looked for a spot to pull off. I caught Sarah on a small rock section she walked - I somehow managed a trackstand on the rocks as she was like right there and I went by her. I knew I had to haul to stay in front of her because there was a nasty uphill to the finish and I was dead. I was flying down the last singletrack section which was exhilarating. Unfortunately, she was hot on my tail and passed me on the climb. I had nothing left and watched her ride away. I rode through the finish with a smile on my face anyway as I had given it a very good effort and I was confident I was in the top 5, which I was very happy with!

Shane chills out at Guy’s Neshaminy Classic in Pennsylvania

The morning of Neshaminy was one of those mornings where you just feel like poop. I was exhausted, a little over-socialized after everyone in my life decided this weekend was the time for a post-pandemic party, and just not that jazzed about racing. I thought about not starting, but then I thought about all the driving I would have to do immediately if I didn’t race and I got on my bike. (I do want to note here, in case any coaches are reading this, for all my foibles, I was very well hydrated.)

I headed into the woods to pre-ride the prologue and, uh, there were a lot of logs. I don’t like logs. I cannot tell you why. I love rocks, will go over big rocks, rocks the size of logs that I would never try. Logs, though, I see them and I freeze up and then it’s too late and I have no momentum and I’ve held up everyone behind me and then I’m walking. I have spent a fair amount of the pandemic trying to get better at logs. Anyway, there were like five logovers in the two mile prologue (the pro-log if you will). It was fine but it didn’t exactly make me feel better about the race. However, again, I didn’t want to be driving again, so I decided I was simply going to have to start the race.

The shortest version of this race report is that I went over every single log on the course, three or four times, and I didn’t have a problem with a single one (the rocks on the other hand… we’re getting to that).

So, I started the race. And, possibly because I wasn’t feeling amazing, I didn’t blow ever bit of energy I had on holding a position I knew would be unsustainable for the first 15 minutes of the race. I sat in. (IMAGINE.) I followed people into the woods, and I followed lines knowing that almost everyone in my group was way more familiar with the course than I was (other than the pro-log I was totally flying blind).

It worked until it didn’t. On a particularly tricky uphill rock section my chain skipped between gears and I was off the bike running into what turned out to be the chunkiest downhill rock section on the course. I couldn’t get back on my bike correctly, had to get off again, and by the time I finally got balanced and moving again I was watching my group ride off into the distance up the course’s most punishing climb.

Luckily for me, possibly due to being as mentioned before exhausted and dead inside, I did not panic. I just decided to keep pedaling smoothly and attempt to not make any more mistakes. That’s not exactly what happened, but I did pretty consistently keep my bike moving forward from that point on. You could say I was chasing, but in the way that I knew I had at least an hour and a half left in the race and I did not actually need to close the gap immediately.

As I came through the start-finish after lap one, the worst/best thing happened: I saw Elisabeth, who had dropped me on the rocky section, heading back into the woods. I knew I had to keep chasing. I did that for an entire lap, again messing up the rock section but less this time. I emerged onto the grass after lap two, looked down and saw about 1:37 had elapsed, granted to myself as I did the math on how much time I had to go, and it happened again: there was Elisabeth. Not right in front of me, but closer this time. I quickly tried to stuff some food in my mouth and start to pedal again.

I pedaled and I pedaled and I pedaled. I went over all the logs, and I even nailed the rocks this time. I kept myself steady into the inexplicable steep downhills straight into loose gravel (whyyyy). With about a mile and a half to go it happened: I actually saw her. Not across the grass, several turns away, but right in front of me.

It’s hard for me to explain how exciting this was for me. It wasn’t really about passing someone, but having finally paced myself right. Cat 1 mountain bike races, especially the Mid Atlantic series races that often end up being over two hours for many of the women, are really, really hard for me. My racing background is mostly filled with park races, crits, and cyclocross. I am a terrible climber, so even when I do a longer road race I’m never at the racing end of things after the first hour or so.

So, after upgrading to cat 1 in mountain bikes I had a really hard time with pacing. In race after race I’ve found myself having an excellent first third of the race and really paying for it for the rest of the race. My lap times are rarely close to being equal. Last week my third lap was something like six minutes slower than my first.

I ended up getting exactly the same place this week as I got last week, and incidentally almost the same place I got at Fair Hill back in April. But I felt like I was racing to get there instead of dying to hang on (!!!).

It was good. Mountain bikes are good. And I definitely need to sleep a lot tonight.